Internet Access in Iran Disrupted Amid Cyber Attacks

"We had a heavy attack against the country's infrastructure and communications companies, which has forced us to limit the Internet," Mehdi Akhavan Behabadi, secretary of the High Council of Cyberspace, said, as quoted by the Iranian Labour News Agency. "We have constant cyber attacks in the country. Yesterday an attack with a traffic of several gigabytes hit the Internet infrastructure, which caused an unwanted slowness in the country's Internet."

The official also argued all of the attacks have been organized, and targeted at the country's nuclear, oil, and information networks.

This is not the first time Iran has allegedly detected a massive cyber-attack. In June, Iranian Police said they had traced several attacks on the Oil Ministry’s servers back to the US, and expected American authorities to disclose the hackers’ identities.

Iran has already implemented one of the world's largest Internet filters, blocking access to thousands of allegedly immoral or anti-government websites. Many restrictions started after the 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when a series of protests flooded the Internet, including Facebook and YouTube.